Systems for digital data processing are increasingly used for controlling complex, safety-critical processes, in particular in the automobile industry. To ensure the safety of the users of such a system, i.e., a motor vehicle in which such a system is used, even in the event of malfunction, the occurrence of a malfunction must be recognized as rapidly as possible and, if necessary, suitable corrective measures must be taken. These corrective measures often depend on disabling the data processing system or at least those parts of the system which are affected by the malfunction. For example, German Published Patent Application No. 100 63 934 discloses a data processing system in the form of a network having a plurality of control units running a plurality of monitoring routines which trigger different shut-off strategies for control units of the network when an error is detected. The different shut-off strategies prevent the need for shutting off the entire network when an error is detected so that those components not affected by the error may continue to run. However, even the shut-off of individual components results in a limitation of the reliability performance of the network.
German Published Patent Application No. 102 20 811 proposes the implementation of a flexible response to different types of errors which may occur in a data processing system with the aid of a modular monitoring method oriented toward the functional units of the system to be monitored. Orientation toward the functional units of the system results in the structure of the monitoring method being dependent on the system to be monitored. Adapting this method to a new application is therefore laborious.